


Crossed the Stars and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

by ishouldwritethatdown



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: (elements of) Secret Relationship, Developing Relationship, Falling In Love, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Sexual Content, Non-Graphic Violence, Other, idiots to lovers, unconventional love confessions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-03-08 18:32:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18900259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishouldwritethatdown/pseuds/ishouldwritethatdown
Summary: Bloodhound is a delightful enigma of antisocial behaviour and murder that Mirage would just love to solve. He's a people-person, which means he likes snooping in everyone's business. His friends think he's nuts for poking at Bloodhound all the time, but he's confident that his irresistible charm and impeccable skills will carry him through anything they can throw at him.He's wrong.





	1. Nuisance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GaydineRoss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GaydineRoss/gifts).



> Category is "other" because there's no NB/M, NB/F, or NB/NB categories on Ao3. For the record, this fic is NB/M.

Dust kicked up into Mirage’s face as he slid across the ground, burning into his throat and nose and making him cough. He tried to push himself up, but his eyes were watering – maybe if he’d kept his _damn goggles down_ – and when he stopped coughing and weep-blinking enough to see, he saw a hand in his face, offered palm-up. He squinted, following the arm up its length to see the buggy eyes of Bloodhound’s mask.

In the corner of his eye, Mirage saw his decoy flicker away – they had seen through his cloaking _again_. It was really starting to irritate him. It wasn’t helped by the fanfare declaring them the Champion of the Games, when they’d only swooped in right at the end there. He’d done most of the heavy lifting.

He took their hand and brushed himself off when he stood upright, clearing his throat. “Thanks, Hound, but seriously, I had it covered.”

Bloodhound grunted and walked off in the direction of the launch pad without further comment. Seemed like it was going to be one of those long, silent flights back to the mainland. Goodie.

“You keep going out of your way to save me, people might start to think you have a crush on me!” he called.

Lifeline jostled his shoulder and started after them, prompting him to follow. “One of these days they’re going to snap and kill you, if you keep taunting them like that.”

“It’s playful banter,” he insisted nonchalantly. “They love me. I mean, who wouldn’t?”

“Ugh. You’re insufferable.”

Some time later, Elliot watched Bloodhound leave the cafeteria with a tray of food. They walked exactly the same as how they did in the arena; like a hunter stalking prey. Did they think their dinner was going to up and run away from them, or something? The fact that they still went by _Bloodhound_ in the Apex Village as well. No one had been able to extract their name from them, not anything about their home or their family – which, okay, could be touchy subjects, but their _name_?

“How do they eat with that mask on all the time?” he said, as they disappeared out of the door. “Do you think they feed it in through a tube? I have literally never seen their face. Do they _sleep_ in that thing?”

“Isn’t that their business?” Williams rolled her eyes, bored. She was decidedly unthrilled about his attempts to learn about their fellow legends, probably because she liked her own privacy. But at least everyone knew Bangalore’s _name_. “Maybe their face is all scarred up and they don’t want nosy assholes like you to see it. It happens.”

Elliot stabbed his mashed potatoes with a fork idly, his chin resting in his other hand. Bloodhound was the legend in the Village who he knew the least about, and he’d been trying to solve the puzzle of their daily existence since they met. Cunning invitations to hit the gym together were usually declined and even when they weren’t, they trained in full armour and didn’t shower. It was impossible to stake out the all the showers at once and catch them there, and his attempts to enlist other legends to this endeavour hadn’t ended favourably.

“I just like to know who I’m on a team with,” he justified later, scrubbing himself off under a steady stream of hot water. _Or who I’m gonna be up against_ , he added in a mental note. When the teams got reconfigured, he might not end up on the same side as Bloodhound again. It would pay to know about them. He really needed to figure out how they were seeing through his holograms before then. “Someday, you know, I know it hasn’t happened yet but someday my life might depend on them being there, and if I don’t know them I can’t rely on them. You know what I’m saying?”

There was no response. He turned off the water and listened to the silence of the changing room. “Uh… hello?” He poked his head out of the stall and saw it was empty as could be. He realised he hadn’t heard an affirming “uh huh” in quite some time.

It was a few more weeks and a few more rounds of Games before something extraordinary revealed itself; Bloodhound had a weakness. One of the tubes on their mask was ruptured, and after a few minutes of valiantly muscling through it, they began to wheeze. Lifeline asked them what was wrong, and they said they were fine.

They _wheezed_ that they were fine.

She asked them what was wrong again, in a more forceful tone of voice, because you don’t mess with your doctor when she’s trying to save your life. Bloodhound said something that was two-parts inaudible and three-parts incomprehensible, but it seemed to mean something to her. They unfastened a pocket from their sash and taped up the hole in the tube, and she stuck them with a needle that would apparently tide them over until they got back to the Village, as long as they finished this quick. Mirage didn’t even get a chance to gloat about him needing to save their ass for once.

Bloodhound made for the medbay as soon as they touched down. Ajay left them to it, which was a tragically missed opportunity to learn more about them, so Elliot decided it was up to him. “I’ll come with you!” he called, jogging to catch up.

“If you must,” they said.

They logged into the medbay and let the computer scan them to confirm their ailment, whatever it was. The machine dispensed a breathing apparatus that was pristine transparent-and-white, in stark contrast to their dark, grubby-looking, retro mask, and before Elliot had time to prepare himself, they had lifted their mask off their face.

His brain short-circuited, and if not for the lack of oxygen in their lungs in the following moments, he might have quipped that he was the one who needed some help breathing. It wasn’t that their appearance was unexpected; they weren’t hiding any severe scars, their face was just sort of rugged, like the rest of them. But something about them – something about finally being privy to the stray hairs that fought to be free of the knot they had their hair in – was doing him in. For some deeply introspective instant, Elliot knew with absolute clarity that Bloodhound was going to be their undoing.

And then they looked at him.

They were in the midst of a deep breath from the oxygen mask, and their dark, piercing eyes darted upwards and locked with his. He suddenly knew that they had looked at him like this before, that they were _always_ looking at him like this, that behind the deep abyss of their mask’s eyes was another well of darkness. This one was different; it had a power about it that forced him to resist a shiver. They could kill him with a look. He watched in slow-motion as they took the mask away from their face, and he was captivated by the details of their lips, parting just slightly…

“What?” they asked, and suddenly everything was o-so-fast. There was no filter between their voice and Elliot’s ears – it was like seeing a real explosion for the first time, feeling the way it shook the air.

“Your face…” he said, almost absently.

“What about it?” they frowned, touching two fingers to their cheek and taking them away to look. That frown… that _frown_.

“No no, it’s—there’s nothing _wrong_ with it, I mean—I’m not saying it’s _perfect_ , I mean no one’s face is perfect, but no, I didn’t mean, well, y’know, that’s how it is with faces,” he stammered, feeling his own (charming, suave, effortlessly beautiful) face heat and scrunch.

Bloodhound only kept their eyes on him for another moment, moving their hands to their own mask in order to assess the damage. There was a pressure release on his vital organs when their gaze lifted off him. “You are a strange person, Mirage,” they said.

He could never talk to them again.

He turned to the exit, intending to leave as quickly ass possible, but their voice stopped them, “Ah, if you’re going by the ‘shop, please could you bring a piece of piping to replace this? It must be airtight, flexible, diameter of 35mm on the interior edges, and no shorter than 80cm.”

It would be rude to say no, right? Especially when he came all the way over to the medbay with them and had done nothing else except ogle weirdly at them. “Sure,” he said.

As soon as he was on his way to the chopshop, he was unable to keep his frustration at himself inside, and it burst out in fits of indignant muttering. He was entirely absorbed in his own world of _being an absolute dumbass_ , and didn’t notice Williams sidle up to him.

She punched his shoulder, “Hey, Mr. Chatterbox. What’s with you? I said the words ‘holo’ and ‘deck’ in quick succession and you didn’t even lift an eyebrow. You wanna go a few rounds?”

“Can’t. Going to the ‘shop for Bloodhound,” he mumbled vaguely.

“You’re not telling me you actually got some guts and decided to talk to them instead of lurking around stalking them?”

“Nope. No way!” his voice came back to him with a miniature boom. “I am never talking to them again, I’m never even looking at them.”

She blinked at him. Eager for a dirty secret, she asked, “What’d they do?”

He shook his head, tight-lipped. “Nuh-uh.”

“Spill!” When that didn’t garner a response, she raised her fist seriously, “Spill, or I’ll make you.”

He just stared at her. She sighed and dropped it, telling him she’d catch him later. “Is that a threat?” he joked, and she grinned at him. He felt some lightness return to his chest. At last, something normal – once he ran this errand for Bloodhound, he could go back to doing what he did best; making quips and kicking ass. No need to let this overshadow his career at the Apex Games any further than it had overshadowed his evening.

Only Bloodhound now seemed to be impossible to avoid. He’d jinxed himself with his complaining that the Village was too big for him to effectively snoop, and now it seemed to be inescapably tiny. He found himself having to share the gym with Bloodhound, the common room with Bloodhound, even the lunch queue with Bloodhound. Every time he saw them he remembered the piercing eyes behind their mask, and tried to make it completely impossible for them to make eye contact with him. He was standing statically in front of the sandwiches with a degree of interest and indecision that was sure to be suspicious. He tried to wait for them to leave, but it seemed to be taking an eternity.

“Uh… what’s up?” he tried, attempting to neutralise the cringe-factor that was climbing with every second that they stood completely still and silent for no reason.

“I was thinking of going to the shooting range shortly.” They still didn’t make a move to grab any food. They’d entered a _conversation_. This was way worse than silence. “Would you like to join me?” they asked.

“Sure,” Elliot said, because his anxiety-addled brain processed it as the fastest way to end this interaction, and the reality of his answer punched him in the gut in the next second, realising he had just committed to spending even more time with them.

“Excellent,” they said, taking a sandwich at last. “I’ll see you there.”

Once they had their back to him and were sufficiently out of range, he smacked his head against the wall and groaned. He felt a heavy hand slap onto his shoulder, and he turned his head and cracked his eyes open to look at his assailant.

Gibraltar had a vaguely condoling expression, and for a moment he felt the warm solidarity of his fellow legends for his plight. Then he said, “You’re in the way, Witt.”

The shooting range was locked when he got there. He thought maybe he had lucked out by some obscure twist of fate, but the lock clicked open with a happy beep a moment later, and Bloodhound opened the door for him. Great.

They resumed their place on the firing line and picked up their weapon again while Elliot went to the racks. What was the minimal amount of clips he could spend before he could excuse himself without seeming like an asshole? A couple? How much time would a couple of clips fill?

The shots on the line stopped, and he heard a sigh instead of the familiar clicks of a reloading gun. He turned to see Bloodhound stepping off the line, and before he could throw over a friendly “hey, you okay?” they were taking their mask off.

Oh no, they were taking their mask off.

They propped it under their arm as they fixed him with those dark, focused eyes. He realised that the intensity of their stare had dulled in his memory, and now seemed even more so. Talk about not knowing you miss something until it’s gone.

“What is going on with you,” they said. And they did _say_ it; it wasn’t a question. “You have been so much less annoying than usual.”

He was too dumbstruck by the statement to respond. Bloodhound was worried about him? Bloodhound was worried about him not being… ‘annoying’? As in joking around, making fun of them, being his chatty self?

“Wait,” he frowned. “You… you like having me around?”

That dark intense gaze shifted off him, to the corners of the shooting range. Their aloof demeanour seemed suddenly much less pertinent. “Your presence is… tolerable. I suppose.”

Elliot grinned in shock. Bloodhound had a _crush_ – on him! His irresistible charm had once again served him proud. “You really like me!”

Bloodhound scowled. “I changed my mind. I liked it better when you weren’t talking.”

“Well, now that I know you have impeccable taste—”

They closed the distance between them and for a second he was sure that he had finally done it; he had finally pissed them off enough for them to murder him with a tactical knife twisted into his gut – but then their lips connected, and it was a thrill unlike anything in the arena. Whatever other mysteries they were hiding up their sleeves, Elliot did at least come into one very important piece of information about them: they were a phenomenal kisser.

When they pulled apart, there was a moment of charged silence. He couldn’t look away from their eyes, so utterly captivating. It was a shame, because if he’d been able to tear his gaze away, he might’ve caught more than the barest flicker of a smile at the corners of their mouth. “That shut you up,” they observed, almost smugly.

He was breathless. He didn’t have a single wisecrack to fire back at them. “Please keep shutting me up,” he said.

And they did.


	2. Mixed Signals

Elliot was humming a tune that he’d plucked off Galaxy Radio as he meandered into the mess hall for breakfast. He felt in the mood for waffles today, he thought, and was delighted to find that Tavio hadn’t had a chance at the waffle station yet, because he always left it a mess. He twirled a coffee stirrer idly between his fingers while he waited for his breakfast to cook in the iron. He kept humming, and it morphed into something vaguely Classical as he started piling fruit and cream and chocolate sauce on his waffle.

“ _Hm-hm-m hm mm, why the hell it means so much to me~_. Hey, guys,” he greeted cheerily as he sat down at Ajay and Willaims’ usual table.

“Oh, look at you,” Williams said around her toast. “How was civilisation?”

He hacked at his waffle, eager to start shovelling it into his mouth. “Huh?”

“You went into the city last night, right?” she asked.

He looked up in confusion. They were both staring at him with interest. “What? No. Why?”

Ajay’s eyes flicked between his face and his breakfast with a frown. “But… you’re eating waffles.” She said that like there was supposed to be any meaningful connection at all. Elliot didn’t always see the obvious, but whatever way he turned it, he couldn’t see any reason why that should mean anything.

“Uh… yeah…?” he said, starting to worry for the ladies’ health.

They exchanged a glance, clearly communicating something. Ajay indicated her spoon in his direction. “Did he…?”

Williams seemed equally put out by whatever revelation they were apparently faced with. “I think he did.”

“ _Who?_ ”

Deciding to ignore them if they were going to insist on being lunatics, he focused on his waffle and its creamy, fruity, chocolatey goodness. The sweetness on his tongue doubled up with the sweetness on his eyes as he saw Bloodhound enter the mess hall. They didn’t acknowledge him openly, but he felt them cast their eyes in his direction from under their mask, and that was more of a hello than they afforded anybody else. He watched them scoop some oatmeal and honey into a bowl. They were all covered up, even at breakfast, so that even the memory of their shape underneath the armour felt sacred, a secret he and he alone had been trusted with. He revelled in it, revelled in the knowledge that he would be seeing it again, that he could run his hands all along their body, feel the warmth of them inside that cold outer shell. He sighed out his nose while they left the hall, already missing the view.

Ajay leaned across the table and hissed, “You slept with Bloodhound?!”

He choked, cream shooting into his nose. “ _What_?” he coughed. “How did—why why why would you ask that?”

Ajay gaped at him. Williams rolled her eyes and tapped her chin to shut her mouth. She answered his question like it was obvious. “Elliot, you only ever have waffles for breakfast when you’ve got laid.”

He spluttered. “That’s not…”

“I can’t believe they had sex with you,” she shook her head, although she clearly did if she was dismissing his protests.

“Did they take the mask off?” Ajay asked, and Williams jabbed her in the side.

Elliot didn’t blush – he wasn’t a blusher. But he did feel his cheeks warm to an alarming degree. “Keep it down,” he mumbled at the giggling that Ajay was not really trying to suppress. “I don’t want the whole Village talking about this.”

“Really,” Williams hummed curiously. “Usually you like to brag up-and-down til we’re all thoroughly sick of you.”

“This is different, okay?” he insisted. “Those people were all outside the Village. Strangers. This is between me and Hound.” He’d never had an intense sense of privacy; having three big brothers really knocked that out of you, and besides, the more of himself he shared with the world, the more spectators invested in him, the more adoring fans threw themselves at his feet. But this thing he was doing with Bloodhound was not for public consumption. It was _theirs_. It was private.

She shrugged, dropping the subject, and Ajay followed suit, although he could tell she was still thinking about it because every so often she’d get a smile and a glitter in her eyes, looking at him. He polished off his waffles in silence. On the way out of the mess hall, Williams grabbed his arm and carted him a little ways away to talk to him alone.

“You want to be careful about catching feelings, Witt,” she warned. “This isn’t the place for it.”

“I’m not an idiot,” he said, and she snorted.

“That’s debatable.”

“We’re just having a bit of fun. It doesn’t mean anything, and when the teams get reshuffled, we’ll switch right into trying to kill each other. Piece of pie.” Bloodhound was a good teammate and a great kisser, but he was here to win the Games, not go doe-eyed over his competitors. When he needed to drop them, he would. “An-An-Anyway, you can talk. You and Che are getting awfully chummy, aren’t you?”

Her expression didn’t shift from the sceptical frown she favoured most. “We have a mutually beneficial arrangement. We’re soldiers, not sweethearts.”

“Yeah, well, this is the same,” he said. “Cross my heart.”

“If you say so, chief,” she shrugged, turning to go her own way down the corridor. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He spent the rest of the morning on the holodeck, trying to reconfigure his dupes to look more lifelike. There was this slightly blue sheen around them that was seemingly impossible to eliminate, and he was beginning to think he’d have to dive into the core specs of his gear to fix it, if it even could be fixed. Was it cheating to ask Bloodhound how they saw through his holograms? It wasn’t cheating when they were on the same team, surely. Even if he used that information when they were on opposing sides later…

He was pondering this dilemma and fixing himself a smoothie when he was approached by the very person he wanted to see; Bloodhound themself.

 “I’ve booked one of the training rooms and need a sparring partner. Would you care to join me?” they asked.

It was dreadfully hard to search their expression for a hint of euphemism when they wore a completely expressionless mask. He cracked a smile, “Now, when you say ‘sparring’, is that the traditional sense, or something a bit more specialised?”

Okay, he took it back. The mask could have expression. Their current one was ‘done with his bullshit.’

He laughed, “Okay, I’ll be right there. Just let me get out of this gear. Which room?”

He rapped on the door of training room 12 a few minutes later. It beeped open and he entered, slinging his towel off his shoulder and around the railing. Bloodhound was stretching on the mat in the centre of the room, maskless. Their arms and shins were showing, too, old scars exposed to the ventilated air. Even out of their armour, their sexiness and mysteriousness was off the scale. He was _almost_ jealous.

“What, no candles? No romantic music?” he teased, wrapping up his hands. “What kind of date is this supposed to be?”

They rolled their eyes and their shoulders. “Enough talk. Let’s fight.”

He couldn’t resist another quip while he squared up. “I can’t believe it all went away so fast. Last night was like a dream, and now look where we are.”

Bloodhound’s first punch hit him squarely in the face. He staggered slightly, but recovered enough to duck out of the way of their next blow and get his bearings.

“If I win, will you tell me how you keep seeing through my holograms?” he wagered.

That seemed to amuse them. “What about when I win?”

“Well, you can name your prize, gorgeous,” he grinned, and went for a jab. They blocked it with their hand, and he followed the movement through with another dodge before they could strike back. He took advantage of their miss to take another swing.

They anticipated his move, though, and his face met with their elbow before they kneed him in the abdomen. He was too slow to back out of their range, so he went the opposite way, digging his shoulder into their middle and grabbing them around the waist to try and flip them over. He lifted them, but before he could throw them to the floor they rolled over his back and landed on their feet. They used their new position to attack his legs, knocking him down, and pinned themself on top of him.

He panted, stunned, and their dark focused eyes bore into him. There was a pleasant buzz of feeling in all the places their bodies were touching, and he was acutely aware of the stray hairs hanging down from Hound’s face being moved by his breath. In that moment he wanted so badly for them to rasp ‘ _I name my prize as you’_ in their beautiful accent and devour him where he lay. It was hard to tell if he got even sweatier at the prospect, but he suspected that he did.

They stayed inches apart and silent for a few eternal moments until Elliot breathed, “So what, what, what’s your trophy?” crossing his fingers all but physically that they were going to lean down and whispered into his ear, _‘You.’_

They sat back on their knees, brushing their stray hairs back over their head. “Another round,” they answered, like they hadn’t just had a _moment_ , like they hadn’t just had the perfect opening. Never mind not asking for any tactical information of their own, which was just a blow to his ego.

“Are you kidding me? You just wiped the floor with me. No way I’m coming back from that.”

“Is your pride wounded so easily?” they criticised, towering above him on their feet. “Get up.”

He frowned. Was there a reason they were so intent on creaming him into the floor? Had he done something to upset them? They’d seemed fine last night – happy, even. And he’d been looking forward to the sequel. Seemed like they wanted to break him into little pieces before then. He raised his fists, and it began again. If he got a hit in, he was so surprised and triumphant that he couldn’t block their counter. They’d get close, right up in Elliot’s face with him in a firm lock – and then right as the tension seemed undeniable, they’d pull back.

The third time they knocked him on his ass, he couldn’t keep it in any longer. “If you have some kinda problem, will you just tell me what it is instead of trying to beat it into me?” he exploded.

They didn’t flinch. They only tilted their head ever so slightly to the side, as if considering him. A stray strand of hair that swayed a little at the motion captivated his attention for a moment before he snapped out of it. He was angry at them, dammit. _Stop thinking about how beautiful they are._

“The problem,” they said, “is that you are supposed to be one of the best fighters in the quadrant. You qualified for the Apex Games. And yet you are too often caught off guard, and your weak points are easy to exploit. You spend your time… _goofing off_ —” they were definitely echoing that from somewhere else “—instead of honing your skills.”

Oh, so that’s what they thought. Prick. “My holos aren’t for fun,” he scowled. “They’re a strategic advantage. You only can’t see that because you know how to tell them apart from me. _Most_ people aren’t so observant.” He grabbed his towel and ran in over his forehead and around to the back of his neck. This argument wasn’t worth the hassle. He turned to leave. “Whatever.”

“Mirage—”

“See you in the ring, Hound,” he cut them off. Bitter, he thought, _That shut you up_.

The sky was dark, and he was spitting sunflower seed shells onto the lawn when Gibraltar sat down beside him with an old man grunt. He handed him a cold can of beer and said, “So you pissed off Blóðhunda. Here’s to your last night alive.”

Elliot scoffed and spat another seed. It didn’t go quite as far as some of the others. “They told you that?”

“Not exactly. But I had to share a gymnasium with them this afternoon, and a destroyed punching bag speaks a thousand words.”

He cracked open his beer. “Well, they don’t get to be mad. _I’m_ mad.”

He chuckled. “So childish. What would your mother say if she were here?”

“Ugh. I thought if there was one place I could get away from the parental nagging, it would be a literal bloodsport arena.” He turned his head away. “Leave me alone, Gib. It’s none of your business.”

“You’re right. It’s not,” he admitted lightly. “But I’ll give you my advice anyway—”

He groaned.

“—You two are speaking different languages. You think they’re saying one thing, but they’re actually saying something else. They think the same. You just need to figure out how to talk to each other.”

“Are you telling me to learn Icelandic? Because I’m not doing that.”

He laughed that huge belly laugh that he did and got to his feet. After downing the rest of his beer, he wiped his mouth and said, “You’ll figure it out. You’ve always been a smart kid.”

As he walked away, Elliot muttered mostly for his own benefit, “For the last goddamn time, I’m not a kid. You and Mom are just old.” He popped another sunflower seed in his mouth. Great, now that great hunk of muscle had made him think about what his _mom_ would say. Probably something really disgustingly, annoyingly sensible.

He’d been frustrated with them for thinking he didn’t take the Games seriously, but he understood _why_ they thought that. He was an entertainer by nature, and he cracked jokes under pressure. And hey, they were on the same team, here. Maybe their criticism earlier had only intended to be constructive, even if they were a mean sonofabitch.

He went inside the complex to pick up some stuff he’d left in the lab and found the light in the second gym on. He sighed. Might as well get this overwith.

“Alright,” he said with as much nonchalance as he could force, waving his hands by his head as he entered the gym, “Maybe I am a childish asshole who goofs off instead of spending every waking minute honing my butt muscles or whatever it is you do, you win. Are you happy now?”

Gibraltar had not been exaggerating about the destruction part. If anything, he’d understated it. Sand from punching bags was scattered about the floor and the cable on one of the weight machines had snapped with overuse. Bloodhound was sat on a bench, breathing heavily and rewrapping their hands in bandages. The discarded ones had a pink tinge at the edges where they’d rubbed the skin to breaking.

“Mirage,” said Bloodhound with soft surprise coming through their mask. He wasn’t sure they had registered anything he’d just said.

“Are you okay, dude?” he asked.

“Yes, fine,” they dismissed. “I am sorry for upsetting you earlier. I only meant—” they stopped, and then stood so that they were at an equal height. “I meant to offer assistance in your training regimen. I did not do that – I was ill-mannered. Please, forgive me.”

“You’re forgiven,” he replied, stunned. Different languages indeed. “But seriously, are you bleeding?”

“It’s nothing,” they affirmed. “My skin breaks easily. It will heal.”

 _My fault._ He sidestepped slightly to open the path to the door of the gym. “I have antiseptic in my room. Closer than the medbay. Come on, I’ll help you clean it up.”

“That is not necessary.”

“Hound, just let me.” _Please_. _Let me apologise too._ They paused, and then nodded and followed him out of the gym.

While he dug the antiseptic out of his clutter drawer, they took off their mask and the bandages around their hands. He tried to imagine their face crumpled in anger or tears, instead of the off-neutral they didn’t seem to ever shift from, but it was a disturbing mental image, so he put it away. He sat down beside them on the bed and took their hands delicately. They almost flinched from the touch, but the antiseptic didn’t seem to cause them any pain when he dabbed it on the raw skin, and he was forced to conclude that their heart was racing just as fast as his at the contact. His fingers seemed to come alive with electricity and his cheeks flushed warm as if this was the most intimate he’d ever been with someone; vulnerable hands placed carefully, tenderly in his, like a secret. The prospect of looking at their face in this moment felt like seeing someone naked, and he instinctively kept his eyes down, giving them privacy.

One of their hands came up and touched softly to the underside of his chin, tilting his head up, and he gulped, throat dry with anticipation. Bloodhound’s eyes were dark and open, inviting him in, and then their lips were soft on his and he was enveloped by the darkness, basking in it. His thigh pressed against theirs and he gasped like it was the most remarkable feeling he’d ever felt, because it was. He ran his hands into their hair and they pulled him impossibly closer with a hand on the back of his neck and he kissed them deeper.

They were on top of him and pinning him down with kiss after glorious kiss, and he was saying, “ _Shit, shit, shit_ ,” because it was so good and he wanted so much more and this was exactly the kind of thing he’d promised himself not to start thinking but it didn’t matter in the slightest because Bloodhound’s breath was on his ear asking him what he wanted and he said, “This, _you_ , all of this and you and more, baby, give me all of you.”

And they did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: I've been informed that Gibraltar is canonically the same age as Mirage. I recognise that the canon has made a decision, but given that it is a stupid-ass decision, I have elected to ignore it. Gibraltar is 55 years old and you can't change my mind.


	3. Q&A

Mirage loves his fans. He does! Because he loves attention, partly, but he’s also thrilled by the passion they have. He and his fans, they have passion in common. They love deeply and intensely. It was the greatest gift to be able to immerse yourself in love for something, to be totally enthralled by it, and spend every waking hour thinking about it. Elliot had only ever felt that way about one thing; holotech. And his fans, they felt that way about _him_. It was inspiring. It was breathtaking.

It was _fucking annoying_ sometimes.

There was a press junket coming up for the Apex Games Season Finale, which was looming ever closer. In the first days of the Games, it would have been a more nerve-racking experience; legends didn’t often survive multiple seasons back then. If you were the last man standing, you won, and then you turned around and never, ever came back, because the jackpot set you up for life and why would you ever do this cray shit again? Well, there were a couple, of course, who had stripped themselves down to nothing but fighting, killing machines, and sometimes they would return. Usually to be humbled right into their graves. With one notable exception.

But it was different nowadays, with the revival tech that kept legends from dying on the regular. Stretching out seasons to nine months of the year, with new competitors being added rarely and with accompanying momentous occasion. The audience really had time to get invested and form favourites, stats pages, match breakdowns and predictions, and that meant money money money for the organisers. And that system was just fine by him, except that it meant the fans were constantly starving for content to update their analyses and fantasies with. Never before had the question, “Mirage, do you like pumpkins?” held the consequential weight it did. He’d learned his lesson with assuming any question was innocent after that one.

His fear over fan questions was drowned out, though, by his love of publicity events. Dressing up, strutting around a red carpet, watching legends’ highlight reels in an amphitheatre and then answering a few (benign, pre-cleared) panel questions about the upcoming Season Finale? It was his favourite time of year.

Bloodhound was less enthusiastic. They tried as far as possible not to speak at these kind of events, and obviously they wore their mask the whole time. That was fine, though – apparently their fans revelled in the mystery of their existence. They didn’t seem thrilled about _having_ fans at all, which just plain confused him, but he didn’t try to argue them on it. He’d joined the games for the adventure and the spotlight; they’d clearly joined for other reasons, even if they weren’t prepared to share that yet.

“Hound, c’mon, you need to get ready to go,” he said, seeing them still in their gear as he tied his bow-tie.

“I am ready,” they told him, getting up from the bed like they had been waiting for him.

“You’re really just turning up as if you’ve just got out of the arena?” he frowned, collecting his bits and pieces to go in his pocket (he liked to be prepared for a variety of situations including powercut, engine failure, motherboard repair, and one-night stand. Plus, they were conversation pieces).

“They will recognise me easily,” they said, striding out of the room as soon as they saw he was ready to prevent him from hanging around to try and change their mind. The recognition wasn’t what they were actually worried about, they were just using it to justify their somewhat feral appearance.

“Well, yeah, but…”

“Almost forgot,” they cut him off, stopping. They lifted their mask, and Elliot couldn’t help catching his breath. Every time, they surprised him with their slightly haunting beauty, and they leaned in close with their lips pressing softly to his. It still starstruck him, after two weeks of this sort of thing; casual kisses when meeting or parting, finding quiet corners of the Village in spare moments, nights in bed with nothing between their skin. It had to be some of the most fun he’d had in years.

“Last chance we’ll get all evening,” they murmured.

“In that case,” Elliot pulled them closer by the hips and kissed them again, deeper. Like it was their last kiss of the century, irony laced through it when he could feel their promise to destroy him later in his mouth, on the flat of their tongue.

When they pulled apart, Bloodhound had the very roughest suggestion of a smile on their lip, smeared in tasteful muted pink, and they pulled their mask down again. “Lipstick’s smudged,” they informed him.

“Starting to see the benefits of wearing a mask,” he commented, taking out his lippy and reapplying. He tilted his chin up to try and get a look at it in the reflection of their goggles.

Williams was stood in the hangar with her hands in her pockets, wearing a crisp white suit and somehow still exuding the vibe that she could beat Elliot into the ground at any second. “You two gonna be able to keep your hands off each other for the whole night?” she asked, jokingly impressed by the prospect, and he scoffed at her. Bloodhound regarded her with utter silence and an inscrutable blank stare, which was how they planned to answer virtually every question they were asked tonight. She was unperturbed, shrugging and telling them both she’d see them on the plane; she was waiting for Ajay.

They pulled up to the red carpet in a limousine and given cues to exit by a woman who looked like caffeine was the only thing holding her together. Elliot rolled his eyes as Octavio made his entrance with a somersault and a heavy-metal yell-screech, hands in the air, amping up the crowd even more than they already were. He found himself strangely nervous for Bloodhound’s reception, though they didn’t seem worried in the slightest – not that anyone could _really_ tell. They received a respectable cheer, especially since from what he could see they didn’t acknowledge the crowd at all.

Their caffeinated coordinator signalled him last, and he got out of the car to raucous applause, feigning shock at their presence and pressing a hand to his chest, mouthing ‘Me?’ before flashing a grin and walking to a spot of railing that was free of other legends.

“Mirage!”

“Mirage, say hi to Diana!”

“Do the thing!”

“Over here!”

“Are you single?”

“Mirage!”

He scribbled autographs and responded to whatever random phrases he could pick out, moving on when the coordinator indicated that he had to. He cast a glance over to how Bloodhound was doing after he posed a selfie and while signing a promotional photo of his own cheesy grin. They had been ensnared by a knot of Bloodhound fanatics calling their name, and was not being allowed to move on until they engaged. He headed to their rescue.

“Where’s Arthur?”

“He hates being around people almost as much as I do,” they said, and their fans laughed empathetically.

“I love you, Bloodhound!”

They moved on, but Elliot caught the small glance that earned the fan, and if he noticed it, then doubtlessly it would be analysed into oblivion by a fan fortunate enough to have caught it on camera. At least they didn’t have fifty different interpretations of microexpressions to examine.

“You’re not bad at this,” he said, as close to a murmur in their ear as he could make it.

“I don’t remember ever saying I was,” they replied, lightly amused.

And he realised that he’d never really _paid attention_ to them at these events before. They blended into the backdrop, kept quiet, and didn’t let anyone see just how good with words they actually were, when they wanted to be. That was what everyone expected, at this point.

The interviewers on the carpet were easy enough to deal with – they were shepherded into groups of three and answered questions about what they were most excited for in the Season Finale, whether they knew anything about this year’s surprise (a few years ago, there had been a ‘special edition’ Finale and it had been so popular that they were trying to give every season a gimmick now), and who they were most scared to face up against in the arena. Fun questions they’d been told vaguely enough to prepare for. As per their arrangement, Elliot answered the last question in perfect union with Octavio and Lifeline: “Caustic.” In the next group over, Williams was saying _Lifeline, you gotta watch out for the healing types_ , and Caustic himself was deadpanning that he wasn’t afraid of anybody. It was… extremely hard to know whether to take that man seriously. Some of the sadistic scientist schtick had to be an act, right? A persona. For the fans’ consumption, someone to hate.

Elliot wasn’t sure. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer, either.

They took their seats in the amphitheatre, and once the rows of press and fans were seated behind them, the lights dimmed and the announcer’s voice came though the speakers. What a season it had been at the Apex Games – legendary like never before. He exchanged a look with Ajay and rolled his eyes, because she _always_ said something like that. _This is a season to remember_ , or _Never-seen-before legends, new combos, and exciting switch-ups_. It was all about the shock-factor these days. Who knew bloodsport could get boring?

The highlight reel began after the season recap, and Elliot kept one eye on the camera poised in front of them in the dark. The red blinking light on top would tell him when he was supposed to have a reaction, when to flash his teeth at the viewers. People acted like the rehearsed aspect of being a legend was cheap and took away from it. He couldn’t disagree more. This was showbiz, baby, and it was what he was born for.

The larger-than-life Ajay on the screen deftly stuck him with a needle and said, “On your feet, sleepy-head.”

The red light on the camera steadied, and he glanced at it, making a casual cutting motion with his hand across his neck and mouthing, “Nah. Not me. That’s somebody else.”

He laughed and grinned at all the right moments, made a ‘yikes’ face when Caustic came into the spotlight, winked at the camera when his dupes made a particularly good decoy if he _did_ say so himself. He was on a roll.

Bloodhound came on the screen in a calculated fury, hunting down targets from other squads while the voiceover boasted their solo stats, and their impressive stack of victories as the longest-standing legend to compete in the Apex Games.

_And they’re not bad to look at, either_ , Elliot thought. On the reel, they leapt out of hiding onto an enemy, uncannily like a beast pouncing on its prey, and drove Wraith to the ground. Pinning her down while she flickered and clawed, they drove a knife smoothly between her ribs and stayed there until she was still. There was music over the clip, but Elliot could see the expansion and contraction of their chest as they breathed with the kill and filled in the sounds mentally. His heart rate ticked up, imagining their breath on his skin and the pressure on his wrists as they held him down.

Bloodhound swept the blood off their knife with practiced precision and stalked back into the brush, and Elliot’s heart pumped fast, quite the opposite of how they’d left Wraith during the match. He tore his eyes from the screen and saw the camera’s red light on him, and only had time to think, _Shit, react,_ before it flickered off him and onto somebody else.

They caught all of that. The gaping-mouthed fascination with Bloodhound’s image on the screen, the raging boner that had hit him hard somewhere in between the knife going in and coming out—

_Relax_ , he told himself. The cameras wanted to catch faces, not extremities, and it was too dark to make any assumptions about his pants, and it wasn’t like they could hear heartbeats or read minds. All they saw was a legend in awe of an experienced killer’s work. That kind of thing was all too common in a game like this.

The Q&A panel was more his area of expertise, and he was glad to move onto it. The frazzled co-ordinator had been handed another cup of coffee to keep her going and managed to get everyone in the right seats roughly on time for the panel starting, which was better than this section of the evening had ever started in Mirage’s time on the Games so far. Time to unwind, have a chill evening being his naturally funny and charming self…

“So Mirage, tell me, are you seeing anyone at the moment?”

Something in his brain short circuited. He managed to stay in his chair – though falling out of it might have been a welcome distraction, actually – but there was much too long a silence between the question and the less-than-hilarious answer, “Seeing anyone? I’m seeing all of you, right now.” There was a polite laugh, and he cleared his throat, trying to use the time to hash together an answer worth saying. “Why, why, why do you ask, Holly?”

“I hope you don’t mind me noticing, but I’m sure I’m not the only one—we haven’t had your signature wolf-whistle yet, tonight. And I was just wondering…” The thought went unfinished as she made a very readable expression at the crowd, who answered with a whoop.

Crud. He forgot all about the stupid wolf-whistle. It wasn’t an _official_ thing, it was barely even a _spoken_ thing, but usually at some point by now in the evening, he’d whistled at somebody. A special pose struck, a swish of scarf or hair, a particularly hot rumble in the highlight reel, and he’d whistle and throw a kiss or a wink at its recipient or the camera. But that flashy stuff, that wasn’t him and Bloodhound. Throwing an open flirt at them now felt wrong, felt vulnerable, and the same to anybody else was just… weird.

“Well, you know I’ve always got my eye out for that special someone,” he said, with a great deal of willpower going into _not_ looking Bloodhound’s way. Just to seal the deal, he winked and clicked his tongue at her, and that received an adequate laugh and cheer from the crowd. Saved it. “But no, ah, no-one yet. Fingers crossed I don’t meet them by driving a knife into their gut, though.”

_Why did I say that?_

That was too obvious. Having fans was hell, they’d pick it apart and twist it every which way until they found the truth and then they’d cling to it beyond all reason, only that didn’t matter this time because it was _true_ —

“I think that sounds romantic,” Bloodhound said, and it caused such an uproar that it completely severed Elliot’s train of thought. They had _never_ answered a question that wasn’t directed at them before. It was like a life ring tossed over the side of a ship.

To bolster the joke, Octavio leaned over to Gibraltar, who was sitting on Bloodhound’s right, and stage-whispered, “Can I swap places with you?”

When the audience settled from a fresh bout of giggles, Elliot flattened himself onto the desk so that he could see Bloodhound, peering around the legends between them, and said, “Dude, I totally thought you were asleep this whole time.”

Laughter. Precious, redeeming laughter, and a shift of conversation onto the most challenging thing about signing up for the Games. Fumble forgotten, the presenter asked whether they were scared when they first joined up – Pathfinder ‘flexed’ robotic arms and proclaimed to feel no fear, before admitting that yes, he was terrified constantly, and if anyone said different about themselves, they were liars. Except Caustic. Not because he thought Caustic truly felt no fear, just because he didn’t want to call him a liar to his face. If robots could be wounded by angry looks, Finder would have disintegrated into a pile of junk right there.

The finale of the press gig always came sooner than he thought it would, but for the first time, he was glad it was almost over. He’d hang around for a few drinks and a chat, and then head off, probably make some joke about cramming for finals. He wanted to get back to the Village, get out of these clothes, and really _thank_ Bloodhound for their gallant rescue.

Williams nudged him as the screen lit up behind them and muttered, “Here comes the surprise. What’ll it be this year, blindfolds? Ice-fishing for supplies?” He snorted.

“As you know, the Apex Games prides itself on thinking up innovative ways to keep you entertained. And we have plenty more ideas, don’t worry – but for the tenth anniversary of the Apex Games, we thought we’d return to our roots. It is my honour to announce that this year’s Season Finale will have the theme… of Sudden Death.”

Now, he wasn’t one to state the obvious. But all that felt appropriate right that second was, _Oh, this is bad._


	4. Big Finish

When Elliot murmured, “Come with me,” into their ear, sheltering his words from the perpetually prying ears of the gala, Bloodhound followed. It wasn’t until he grabbed their hand and towed them along, bouncing, “Come on, come on, come _on_ ,” that they saw the wobble in his step. Something was… very wrong.

He pulled them into an empty room, one of the smaller dining halls of the venue, which had been clearly marked with a ‘No unauthorised access’ sign pinned to the door. They waited expectantly for an explanation while Elliot continued to gaze at them, eyes flicking back and forth from the sockets in their mask like he was reading them while their fingers twined.

He reached up to the sides of their head where the straps of their mask were and mumbled, “I want your face.”

They stepped back hastily, heart clenching at the unexpected breach of privacy. “What are you doing?”

He had tried to catch them, but his feet hadn’t moved with them and he’d grasped thin air, pouting. “What does it look like I’m doing? Getting your mask off, beautiful,” he slurred.

“You’re drunk,” they said flatly. Of _course_ he was drunk. Would it be an Apex Games event if Mirage didn’t go in too hard on the champagne?

He looked offended, eyes blinking closed as he argued, “I’m, I’m, I’m not _drunk_. It’s just a little, just a little, just a little buzz, okay? Little honeybee, bzzzzz…” He half-stepped, half-stumbled closer to them, making their torsos collide, and he clapped both hands onto their ass, grinning. “Makes it taste all the sweeter.”

They pushed down the rising _want_ underneath their skin – inappropriate. Not the time. “You need to sober up.”

He shushed them, waving the finger of his left hand, which he’d lifted back to his face. “No, baby, baby, baby, listen to me alright? Listen. Listen.” He paused, then frowned, looking into nothing, trying to recall what he was about to say. “I’m… fine.”

He was leaning most of his weight on them, and they tried to right him. He swayed on the spot. This was past the usual level of Mirage tipsiness. “This is not fine.”

“It is,” he insisted. He thrust his hands up, “It’s great! Everything’s great! I’m, I’m, I’m gonna, just, gonna die tomorrow, and it’s great! Sudden death, baby! Wa-pow! Just like that. Over. Finito. That’s all, folks!”

“You’re not going to die.”

“Uh, yeah, dingus, I am. You heard the rules. You heard ‘em! You die in the game, you don’t come back. Twenty squads, top sixty players over the last season... one hour. Sixty. Minutes!” He brandished six fingers for emphasis. “No way I can keep up my dupe game that long. I’m dead. I’m already dead. But it’s fine! Cause it means, it means… it means nothing I do matters!” His laugh had a hollow ring to it. “I can do anything, anything, anything I want. And I want _you_ , baby. Right here, right now.”

He leaned in again, looping his arms around their neck this time. “Hey. Hey,” he giggled, breathy against their ear. “Hey, fuck me like it’s our last night breathing, darlin’.”

Their mind went to the cameras waiting to get snaps of them outside the venue, all the sponsors and guests who fed into gossip circles on the inside of it. Bloodhound couldn’t let Elliot continue fawning over them publicly, drunkenly pleading for end-of-the-world sex that it was neither the time nor place to give. With a sigh, they reasoned that they didn’t have a choice. He would thank them later.

Bloodhound kicked his knees out from under him, and dropped him into a headlock.

\---

“Witt!”

It had been a while since Elliot woke up having no idea where he was or how he’d got there – but how he’d ended up with a steel rod passing through his brain from ear-to-ear was anybody’s guess.

“You’re gonna miss the plane, brutha.”

He groaned. “Fuck, I’m so hungover.”

“The plane doesn’t care. Drink this. Wheels up in ten.”

Empty stomach, except for the water he was chugging down his throat, most of which he almost spat up again when Gibraltar clapped him on the back and clunked from the room. Not ideal. Who organised a Season Finale gala the night before the actual Season Finale?

The same kind of sadist who ran a bloodsport, he supposed. He couldn’t say he didn’t sign up for this, as he dragged on his fatigues with much more speed that anybody should expect from a hungover clutz, and the hologear that had – mercifully – been laid out for him already. He wondered if he had somebody to thank for that. It certainly wasn’t his MO to be that forward-thinking. Or kind to his future-self in any way, shape, or form.

_Where’s Hound?_

They weren’t here. That wasn’t particularly surprising, given their preferred level of preparedness for the ring, but he’d got kind of used to feeling them get up in the morning. They rose early, and he would hear them murmuring in their language, something close to what he thought a prayer might sound like. He didn’t know if they knew he was half-conscious for that, but it was comforting to him. There was one they said out loud, before a match; a prayer of protection, and swift deaths. He’d asked. And he’d come to feel just a little bit watched-over, by more than cameras and studio producers and fans. It was new, and different… and absent, now.

Through the pounding in his head, he tried to remember if he’d heard the team announcements. They were usually done while he was still eating breakfast, and there was no way he’d been awake enough to hear that. The entire night was an indistinct haze followed by absolute unconsciousness. Perfect. Juuuuust perfect.

“Mirage,” Bangalore expressed, as if to say, _Fancy seeing you here_. There was about a minute left on the clock when he got to the hangar. “You made it.”

“Like you ever doubted it,” he said, finishing up calibrating his gear as he walked, and she fell into step with him. “Lore, _please_ tell me this means you’re on my team.”

“You got it, you lucky son of a gun.”

Praise the goddamn Allfather, he might just make it through alive. “You and…?”

“Wraith. She’s already on the plane. Oh, and she’s pissed at you.”

“Figures.” He cleared his throat. “Just how big of a fool of myself did I make last night?”

She flashed a grin, then shrugged, “Not your worst. But I think Bloodhound got the worst of it.”

He winced. “What’d I do?”

“Dunno. But they were acting kinda funny. More than usual,” she added at the end, because here would usually be Elliot’s quick-witted comment about how they’re _always_ acting funny. It hadn’t even crossed his mind until she said it, because he was busy scanning the hangar for hide or hair of them. There was none.

“What’s your best guess? Flowers? Chocolates? All expenses paid trip wherever they wanna go?”

She snorted. “I need to get you drunk more often, if you’re going to make it up to _me_ with vacations.”

“In your dreams, Williams.”

They were the last two into the dropship, in the two seats by the door. Bangalore grabbed the nearest one, dooming him to being neighbour to Wraith, who was clearly trying to punch holes in him with her mind. He was pretty sure she couldn’t do that. Pretty sure. He risked taking his eyes off her for a second to find Bloodhound, but they were seated way down the aisle, facing forward. He rose his hand in a short wave that failed to grab their attention, although Pathfinder did wave cheerily back just before the ramp shut and they began takeoff.

“You remember anything about last night?” Wraith scorned, speaking low.

While he should be used to that question by now… it still pained him to answer. “Not… really. I owe you an apology?”

She scoffed. “If you like.”

“You started spitting Game strategy about four champagne flutes in. Might’ve broken that hapless idiot persona you’re always adopting.”

He didn’t know whether to be hurt that she thought of it as a persona, or flattered that she thought he wasn’t really like that all the time. He frowned, “But we didn’t know our teams last night.”

“Nope.”

He groaned. “Come on! What use is a strategy if I told it to every team?”

“It wasn’t about _our_ strategy. It was about _their_ strategy.” Bangalore pointed up.

He didn’t follow, blinking at her. Maybe it was the hunger. “What, I had an existential crisis and started going on about the Allfather’s Great Plan or some shit?”

“What? No, dingus. The Gamemasters’ plan. For us.”

“Doesn’t their plan essentially amount to throwing us all into a canyon and watching us kill each other? Or did I miss a memo about what ‘Sudden Death’ means?”

Wraith ‘tch’d and slumped back in her seat, muttering, “Brilliant. His drunk self is a better strategist than his sober self.”

“Witt, think about it,” Williams pressed. “What are the Apex Games, above all else?”

“Entertainment,” he answered immediately. Spotlights, interviews, merch, the glamourous life of a killer-for-sport. What else?

His teammates glanced at each other. “Right,” Bangalore said. “I’m a soldier. So is Wraith. _We_ didn’t get it. But _you_ did. The Gamemasters don’t want to kill us. Why? Because then they’d have to cultivate a whole new roster of legends. It’d be like starting all over again. They don’t want to lose their loyal fanbase just because they decided to up the spectacle for one Season Finale.”

“They just want to kill a couple,” Wraith continued. “Fulfil their promise of a deathmatch. Probably with some lower-ranking legends. _Maybe_ one of the top ten, but no more than one. So, any capable legend who doesn’t want to get in trouble with corporate…”

“Isn’t going to go for the kill shot,” he finished. Opposite them on the other side of the hangar, Gibraltar gave a single, serious nod, while Octane thumbs’d them up. Maybe there was some hope for his survival after all. Huh! “Is it just me, or does this actually sound lower-stakes than every other match of the season?”

Bangalore shrugged. “Sure, if you want to look at it that way. But the way they explained it last night – no revivals. Once you’re gone, that’s it. Game over for you. But if your team doesn’t collect your banner…”

“Then you’re dead. For real.” Wraith slid her palms against each other, a nervous tic. Her fear didn’t make it into her voice, though. She sounded deadpan as ever. “I don’t know about you, but that’s not for me.”

Cripes.

“Remember,” Ajay said from across the deck, “they’re not gonna drop us all at—”

He screamed. You could surely forgive him for screaming. Why don’t _you_ try unexpectedly beginning a 30,000ft drop into an arena of death before you criticise Mirage for screaming.

“Okay. Okay. Okay, okay, okay,” he said, dragging his goggles over his eyes and tipping himself around so that he was angling down instead of flailing about wildly and wasting all his jetpack fuel. “Okay. Okay. This is fine. It’s totally fine. I’m totally fine. Yeah.”

The HUD identified the hotzone, the supply ship… he was pretty sure that was the Pit, over there, right, okay, good, he knew whereabouts he was.  Better hole up somewhere halfway quiet and wait for the others to drop and make contact. _Not gonna drop us all at once._ What the fuck? That had never happened before. Why change the rules at the last second?

Ah. Because letting them all get too used to the rules would make this over far too quickly, with all the usual suspects coming out on top. He got it.

As his feet touched down, he let out a showy sigh of relief and lifted his goggles. “Dignity intact,” he announced to the invisible cameras, which had doubtlessly caught his entire skydive in flawless HD. He was the first one out of the plane, at least. That meant he had first pickings of the battered buildings where fate had decided he would land.

“Oh, yes. Come to Mirage, baby,” he cradled the Wingman and planted a quick kiss on the shaft before checking the clip. One magazine. He picked up the rest of the heavy ammo he could find in this little corner of paradise, as well as light ammo for his shiny new R-99, a handful of syringes, and two shield cells. Not bad. He checked the progress of the colourful jetpack streaks in the sky. Some were still in the process of falling. A helmet would be a good next find…

A spatter of gunfire and he dived into cover. He clocked the shooter; long range. Taking a shot without properly using the element of surprise. Eager for first blood. Eager to please. Probably ranked 30-20, then. Nothing to be too concerned about.

This was easier on the headspace than he’d been dreading. This version of Sudden Death was much tamer than the kind every legend had to win to _be_ a legend in the first place. Most applicants to the games never qualified. _He_ had. He’d survived a warzone, and he’d survived the Apex Games. Several times over. He was downright awesome.

And he’d promised Mom he’d visit once the season was over. No way she’d let him duck out of that by _dying_.

He deployed his decoy and skirted around the other side of the gigantic piece of conveniently-placed metal debris to take advantage of the distraction, readying the R-99 as he went. While they scattered his holo-self into blue pixels, he aimed through the scope and fired.

“Attention: First blood.”

“You better not be dead before I even hit the ground, Mirage,” Bangalore said, comms coming alive.

“Can’t get rid of me that easy. You know, I don’t think this is going to be so hard.”

_Me and my big fucking mouth_ , he thought, just thirty minutes later, when his clip clicked obnoxiously at him, empty. He slammed back against the wooden side of a building while Wraith switched in with him.

“Got them.”

“Good, cause I’m out.”

She slapped a mag of light ammo into his hand – all she could spare. “Alright, we’ve gotta move. Let’s head to the bridges.”

“Hold that thought,” Bangalore piped up. “I’m pinned down over here. Nox gas.” Elliot squinted at her tag on the HUD. That looked like…

“You went in the bunker on your own?” Wraith scowled, already picking their route and scanning for enemies.

“I was taking cover. Got shoehorned in. Clever asshole set up a gas trap for me.”

“I suppose it’s too much to hope for that old Alexander switched out his toxic death concoction for a nice friendly knockout gas?”

“As if Caustic has ever cared about what corporate thinks of his methods,” Wraith muttered. At another sudden bout of gunfire coinciding with the klaxon that indicated the ring closing, she glanced at him.

He nodded. “Go. I’ll catch you up.”

She nodded in return and vanished into a trail of purple energy, speeding up the hill. When there was a pause in the steady scream of an automatic weapon – reloading – he propped his gun over the top of the crate and fired. One, two, three, down. Whoever it was crawled behind cover, which was fine. If they had squadmates left, they’d heal them or collect their banner. Either way, they’d be distracted long enough for him to get lost.

There was no cover on the way up the hill, so he deployed his decoy at another angle and sprinted for it. Hopefully, everyone else would also be too busy evading the edge of the red ring of doom to care if they spotted the real him. Nobody wanted to get caught by the ring today; there was no way anybody was recovering their banner from _that_.

Which meant it was probably safe to scour for ammo in a crate tucked into the cliffside, he thought. Shield cells, a Hemlock… dammit. In the distance, he could hear the raining down of heavy artillery. Better get moving before the ladies got all the glory.

By pure luck, the next place his eyes landed was on Bloodhound’s mask. Most of them was hidden by the trees and shrubbery on this part of the hill, but their mask was fully visible, and not that he could be sure, but—

But they had definitely just locked eyes with him.

Heart pumping fast, he slapped his arm and then saw it disappear as his dupes made a bamboozling circle around his former position and he sprinted up the hill, parallel to the treeline, in the hopes that his cloaking lasted long enough to get him out of Hound’s line of sight and fire.

But since when did Hound get fooled by his dupes, anyway?

He heard their guttural roar filtered through their mouthpiece, the sound of boots striking earth faster than anything should be able to run, like legally. He twisted around to try and use the short range to his Wingman’s advantage but then they were pouncing on him, hands gripping onto the straps on his torso and pressing into his skin through his outfit like talons. There was a brief moment where he was airborne, and he could imagine the slow-motion cameras orbiting around them to get this from every angle… and then he felt his head smacking against the ground and the oxygen evacuating his lungs. He couldn’t inhale, and his vision swam as he stared into bulging black glass that gave nothing away. Hot air vented out of their mask into his face.

“That’s a funny idea of romantic,” he wheezed, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in the back of his head and sting in his side where there was undoubtedly something sharp. He felt their fingers on his arm – tampering with his hologear? “Hey, what’re you—"

“Stay down,” they ordered, so low that the microphones were bound to struggle to pick it up. A message for Elliot only; not a threat, not a show for the cameras. Just ‘ _stay down.’_

And he did.


End file.
